I use Glutamine everyday. I lift weights and I found it helped with that first. I than ended up taking it more when I found out it helped with Celiacs. It does help me I think and I actually ran out of it so im in need of a bottle. As for my lab values, all are great. Except I am hypoglycemic also but I have found it only helps me. I am interested in the articles you both posted and am anxious to read them.

I had a visit with my PCP today and she want's to run more blood work on me. I brought the L-Glutamine bottle with me and told her it had been connected with abnormal liver blood tests, but that I'd stopped taking it and wanted to wait a few months before re-testing. She told me in 15 years she'd never seen a connection and that I could have Hepatitis with those lab results. I stuck to my guns, rightly or wrongly, and wouldn't agree to the blood draw today. I don't have history of habits/behavior that would lead to Hepatitis or Liver Disease.

After I left my Dr's office visit, I googled L-Glutamine and Liver disease and came up with a 10 page report from England that you may find interesting:1 TOX/2008/35 COMMITTEE ON TOXICITY OF CHEMICALS ... cot.food.gov.uk/pdfs/tox200835.pdf

I've had some wonky blood test results, but never had skewed results on a basic blood test. I can't say for certain it's from taking that supplement, but can say for certain I'm not taking it anymore.

I had a visit with my PCP today and she want's to run more blood work on me. I brought the L-Glutamine bottle with me and told her it had been connected with abnormal liver blood tests, but that I'd stopped taking it and wanted to wait a few months before re-testing. She told me in 15 years she'd never seen a connection and that I could have Hepatitis with those lab results. I stuck to my guns, rightly or wrongly, and wouldn't agree to the blood draw today. I don't have history of habits/behavior that would lead to Hepatitis or Liver Disease.

After I left my Dr's office visit, I googled L-Glutamine and Liver disease and came up with a 10 page report from England that you may find interesting:1 TOX/2008/35 COMMITTEE ON TOXICITY OF CHEMICALS ... cot.food.gov.uk/pdfs/tox200835.pdf

I've had some wonky blood test results, but never had skewed results on a basic blood test. I can't say for certain it's from taking that supplement, but can say for certain I'm not taking it anymore.

Not to make you feel whatever--please note that the article you referred us to is about chondroitin and glucosamine sulfate. Not L-glutamine...

Nevertheless, whereas many thought there were no problems with it whatever, apparently that just ain't true. Too much of even a good thing, even if it just means taking it for too long, is still too much.

For me though, like it appears to be for you for your liver values, I was right to go off it. I do have a history of kidney problems and food allergies up the yin yang, especially to dyes, as well as hypoglycemia, which is a real no no for L-glutamine it appears.

Its too bad, since I did like how it made me feel, at least for a while. For most I think its OK though for a few days if one has just been glutened, or one has started a real work out program you aren't used to yet.

Meanwhile I am glad this discussion has helped you deepen an important clue for your health concerning the pros and cons of taking L-glutamine or not.

I want to point out though that many here with celiac do have damaged livers simply because of the toxic overload due to ourvilli being damaged and thus causing leaky gut. This in turn makes seemingly innocuous food substances like oil, proteins and carbohydrates etc. turn into foreign invaders that we react to. Downwind the liver has to clean upthemess and often gets clogged up and overloaded.

It might be wise to eat less animal fat for now for instance to take the stress off your liver. I find it is helping me after discovering my liver and gall bladder were stressed this last fall. It has helped to use a variety of detox herbs as well as eat more azuki and other beans and avoid butter and eggs and most meat except fish. I also now eat apples and pears most every day since theliver apparently loves them. The pectin in them helps detox the liver too.

After three months of that diet without meat except for fish, I now can eat chicken without the fat, and often cook a bit in with my beans and veggies. The azuki beans actually help dissolve the built up cholesterol in the liver and gall bladder. You can find t hem at most Asian stores.

By soaking the beans a good 24 to 48 hours, changing the water several times, and then bringing the new water to a boil and changing it another 3 times (boiling each time after and then straining the hot water out), before cooking the beans the final couple of hours, it helps get rid of the indigestible carbohydrate. I never thought I could eat beans before but find the azuki beans easy to digest. You might not need to go to such lengths, however I really seem to need to. If eaten with brown rice it increases the protein content of the beans according to many sources.

If you want documentation, please let me know. However you can Google a lot of this information yourself... Including the bit about the healing properties of azuki beans as well as the fact many celiacs have problems with their liver and gall bladder. The why of it is a little harder to trace, but out there if you do some sleuthing. I looked all this up with the help of my bf (who has more official medical training than I) due to my own condition and did not necessarily keep track of all the urls, though do have some.

I wish all this wasn't so hard to figure out. Its like there is the information out there but its all in distinct parts. It needs to be put together into whole systems to see how it all interrelates for it really to be useful or understandable by us lay people. We need to know because this is our health and well being at stake after all...not to speak of the added stress our ill health brings to our families, friends and communities. Its not just some abstract idea or other or a neat way to make money (for the pharmas for instance or the big insurance companies or managed corporate health care). .

I have a hard time too wondering if I'm just crazy. People ask questions a lot and sometimes that throws me off like will i always have to answer questions my whole life ? Then a part of me thinks I'd rather them ask than not care at all. I'm not sure if my family believed me at first either. Some have said that so many things we eat are bad for us and can give us cancer etc. so why cut out gluten? But I know it's their opinion and not mine and I know more about it than they do. I have to keep perspective.

Don't feel silly. I went for years feeling like crap, always knowing something was wrong, but doctor's and their stupid tests could never find anything out of the ordinary. Since my daughters have been diagnosed, I have come to realize that gluten was also MY problem.

Yes, I was called a hypochondriac, I was told that I was just trying to get attention - both behind my back and to my face. Ex-friends, family members, coworkers - they all said the same thing.

Stick to your guns. Only YOU know how you feel and what makes you feel that way. Do what you have to do to take care of yourself.

Thank you! It makes me feel so much better that I am not the only one out there! Really is a huge relief to me.

Funny story. Over a year ago I was researching my symptoms and figured I had Lupus.

DP showed up with a 25 cent book from the library used book shop: "Lupus Q&A Everything You Need to Know".

The way I remember it is that he gave me the book because two of my girlfriends have Lupus and he thought I'd want to learn more. I thumbed through it and told him to donate it back to the library, I probably wouldn't read it.

He remembers that I told him I thought maybe I had Lupus (after exhaustive internet searching) so when he saw the book he bought it. He says when he brought it home, I told him I didn't have that, had been tested, donate it back to the library.

The funny thing is that yesterday I told him it was too bad that we didn't still have that book he bought. He produced it, and there is one mark in the book. Discoid Lupus has a pink highlighter on it. So, yes, thanks to the 25 cent book, we know I have a mild form of lupus. (Even though I want to attack my left lower ear with a dinner fork to scratch it! )